Solar ♦ news digest 2D self-assembling material
may produce solar cells Ni3(HITP)2 shares graphene’s hexagonal honeycomb structure for flat semiconductors and has a useable bandgap
Researchers around the world have been working to harness the unusual properties of graphene, a two-dimensional sheet of carbon atoms.
But graphene lacks one important characteristic that would make it even more useful: a property called a bandgap, which is essential for making devices such as computer chips and solar cells.
Now, researchers at MIT and Harvard University have found a two-dimensional material whose properties are very similar to graphene, but with some distinct advantages - including the fact that this material naturally has a useable bandgap.
The research, published online in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, was carried out by MIT assistant professor of chemistry Mircea Dincă and seven co-authors.
The new material, a combination of nickel and an organic compound called HITP, also has the advantage of self- assembly: Its constituents naturally assemble themselves, a “bottom-up” approach that could lend itself to easier manufacturing and tuning of desired properties by adjusting relative amounts of the ingredients.
First Solar Series 3 Black Plus PV modules
Construction on the projects is expected to begin in the second quarter of 2014, with CID Solar anticipated completion in October 2014 and Cottonwood anticipated completion in the first quarter of 2015.
Research on such two-dimensional materials, which often possess extraordinary properties, is “all the rage these days, and for good reason,” Dincă says.
Graphene, for example, has extremely good electrical and thermal conductivity, as well as great strength. But its lack of a bandgap forces researchers to modify it for certain uses - such as by adding other molecules that attach themselves to its structure - measures that tend to degrade the properties that made the material desirable in the first place.
The new compound, Ni3(HITP)2, shares graphene’s perfectly hexagonal honeycomb structure. What’s more, multiple layers of the material naturally form perfectly aligned stacks, with the openings at the centres of the hexagons all of precisely the same size, about 2 nanometres across.
A diagram of the molecular structure o Ni3(HITP)2 is pictured at the top of this story. The new material shows how it naturally forms a hexagonal lattice structure, and its two-dimensional
June 2014
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